Looking for Answers
by Nindy Kyoko Shinretzu
Summary: A 25-year-old Mirai Trunks decides he wants to learn how his father was at the exact same age and travels through space and time to sign on for Frieza's army.
1. Quinten

**Author's Note:** Hi everyone, just to those who follow me: **I have not forgotten about Passion and Loneliness!** After my exams this year (which I completed with good results) I was faced with rather trying personal circumstances. This truly messed with my inspiration and my ability to write. I've had to move out and I'm slowly recovering my inspiration - this Mirai Trunks fic is just the first thing that requested me to be let out of my brain in some way. I hope to get back to Passion and Loneliness again soon and to regain my faith in my writing - please bear with me =).

* * *

Had he realized he'd be changing yet another past when he'd decided to go on with this? Of course he had; he was no fool. The genes of both his parents had gifted him with deductive skills hardly anyone could pride himself on. He was creating yet another alternate universe; whether he'd alter it only slightly he did not yet know. But why, why had he given in to this compulsion? It was wrong; he was slowly fragmenting the time-space continuum. What if he had to answer for this in Other World one day? With the androids he'd had an excuse, but now… Did he really have to admit to blatant curiosity? Was it confusion? Come to think his mother had always thought him the responsible one… As a matter of fact, when he'd paid the past he'd changed a visit a year ago he'd found his alternate self to be immature, rash, smug, arrogant – even as a toddler. But he'd also noticed his young mirror already carried a sense of security he wished he'd managed to internalize in his own childhood. The product of the androids' absence and his father's presence, no doubt. His father who was here somewhere: on Planet Frieza 79. A leading mercenary of twenty-five years old; just like him.

**Looking for Answers**

Chapter 1: Quinten

_Why do I exist, and to what purpose?_

"You want to go to a past where your father's twenty-five years old and sign on for Frieza's army? Please tell me you've lost it. Trunks? This is madness. You can't possibly be serious."

"Why can't I be?" her son challenged her; his blazing blue eyes boring into hers with a hint of defiance as his purple bangs fell handsomely over his face. A lot of young girls would've killed for the young man to give them this look, but Bulma found it most displeasing.

"Use your brain. You'll be changing a past you have no business changing. And it won't get you anywhere to see your father at that age. Do you realize-?" she started, but she was cut short within seconds.

"That he was probably the most murderous megalomaniac at that time? Yes. I just want to see him at the same point in life where I am right now, mom – infiltrate, study the environment he grew up in… I want to _understand_, mom. Is that really so big a deal? I _am_ a super saiyan you know – I even found the key to super saiyan two, just like Gohan did. We both know I can get rid of anyone dangerous I'll come across within the blink of an eye, so why-?"

"For the love of Kami it'll **damage** you, son! You're too inexperienced to face an environment as brutal as that – I'm telling you now; you're going to be in over your head, wishing that you'd **listened to me** instead of being so **stubborn** in thinking that this would somehow give you a better understanding of your father. Why do you even **need** this? I for one thought you were satisfied with what you learned about your father when you met him in the past and even trained with him in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber."

"I just want to see where he grew up. It puts him in a whole other league to have grown up in space like that; even in the past you could see it sets him apart from the others. I think I can learn something from this – I promise I won't interfere with anything. I'll just observe. C'mon mom, I know grandpa generated coordinates for I-don't-know-how-many planets back when he made that ship for Goku to travel to Namek in. There are coordinates for Frieza's planets in those files too – I just know it. Please."

The aqua-haired genius sighed and shook her head as she smiled up at her strong-willed son, her blue eyes sparkling.

"You're hopeless, Trunks. And you **will** interfere. Eventually it'll be inevitable and you know that just as well as I do. But I know there's no talking you out of it; the idea's obviously settled itself into your head. Let's just make preparations then, shall we?"

Once again she noticed how tall her son had grown when he gave her a spontaneous hug and she practically disappeared in his embrace. When he released her he smiled down at her, noticing how ferocious she looked in the simple red jacket she was wearing and in the simple way she composed herself in front of him.

For the first time in his life he felt he understood just what had attracted his dad to this 'weak earth woman' – he was facing a spirit that just didn't break. A slight pang of guilt shot through his heart as he reflected upon what he was doing – he'd be leaving her again without being able to give her even a timeframe as to when he would be back.

"I hope you prove an awesome spy 'cause I'm sure as hell expecting **a lot** of pictures of your dad to make up for the trouble you're putting me through," Bulma laughed.

Her son blushed. Sometimes it really _was_ like his mom could read his mind.

"Female's intuition, son," Capsule Corp's CEO winked teasingly.

* * *

Planet Litt's atmosphere was thick and warm; the air itself scorched organisms not originated and thus accustomed to the planet's circumstances and many a weaker soldier had found death when their lungs burned. Rock and sand were the building-stones for any civilized construction the reptile-birds had pulled up from the soil their home gave them; temples and homes that lay in ruins as they'd found their fate at the hands of Frieza's army. It was the price to pay to have the people convinced to pledge eternal alliance to the icy galactic overlord – a price that had already made the knees of their leader buckle and sell out his loyal subjects. It was just the rebels that had to be either killed off or forced into subservience now; their sturdy skin and resistance to harsh climates made the people of Litt valuable adversaries to collect into the Colds' ever-growing empire.

Trunks sighed as he overlooked the planet from a high cliff, bothered by the sand that had found its way into the slash on his abdomen; right through the black saiyan-suit that had been assigned to him. It was a nasty reminder of simple carelessness; it needn't have happened, but he'd pitied the creature he'd been torturing for a cause that he knew had nearly destroyed his father. But this was what he'd signed on for, wasn't it? His mother had warned him; it had been his own choice. He had to stomach committing atrocities he detested just to find a closer understanding, something of meaning to it all… Maybe he ought to simply view it as a new computer game he was playing, like a study project in a different world that didn't have legitimacy to it anyway… His train of thought stopped abruptly as he bit his cheek until it bled. What was this environment doing to his humanity? Two weeks… Was that all it took to become inhumane? This was no game… this were **people**. He closed his eyes and shook his head in fury, ordering his thoughts to stop. The young man was clueless as to how the growl that escaped him was mirrored by his own father, light-years away, at that very moment.

* * *

Nappa and Radditz had to be two of the most **useless** subordinates you could ever find yourself stuck with. When they had to purge, they'd play around. When they had to torture, they'd get carried away and purge. Just where did these two oafs that called themselves saiyans even keep their brains? If you wanted a job done right you just had to do it yourself.

He rose high up in the planet's red sky and evaporated a city with a single blast; invented solely to assure millimeter-precision. Frieza didn't want a single bump in soil he planned to use. Again; something these oafs seemed too stupid to foresee.

"P-prince Vegeta! I didn't recognize you, sire!"

A smile of almost demonic entertainment. An inferior purple-skinned soldier, unable to use energy with anything but a ki-gun, had shot the elite warrior in the back; confusing him for a native still left alive. He shivered in barely concealed fear as he tried to back away.

"What's the matter? No need to wet yourself; that hardly tickled. Not afraid of someone on your own team, are you, **comrade**?"

"Oh thank you, thank you for your mercy-"

But the sentence of the purple-skinned soldier went unfinished as black orbs of malice and amusement locked with his yellow ones and the prince's left arm protruded his chest.

"Oops. Seems I really need to learn how to control these spasms," Vegeta remarked as he retracted his arm. He laughed as the soldier fell to the oblivion that was the city and made sure to incinerate him to ashes before he hit ground. It would be much preferred if he wouldn't be lying there. "Frieza might have considered him a bump," he sniggered.

* * *

"Mercenary Quinten reporting in, sir!"

A brown-skinned alien with pointy ears went with his finger over the information on a chart as he faced a young soldier with high cheekbones and long, purple hair.

They were in a sterile environment that seemed to exist of not much else than white tiles. The young demi-saiyan had developed a distaste for these surroundings; feeling caught like some kind of test-subject in a web of scientists unfamiliar to him. Yet he knew he'd be given an opportunity this time; like a window beckoning him to escape this sense of oppression. Two months in Frieza's service had passed and he had not even set eyes on his father so far; all he knew of his existence and of his fearsome reputation was through gossip and rumor. But today, he knew for a fact that he'd be on the same base as he was. And even more: he'd been informed he chanced being brought onto the lizard's space-ship for an unknown period of time. The space-ship where his father was known to linger whenever he wasn't on his way.

"Let's see here. Ah, yes. You've been supplying us with outstanding work, boy. Not faltered on a single mission just yet – simply some adjustment issues in the beginning of your service, but that's not unusual and you seem to have outgrown it unusually quickly. I see you're prided on strategy. In short, you're exactly the kind of guy Lord Frieza likes to see in his army, kid. We have plenty of baboons running around; powerful baboons, no mind; but we need people who can keep a cool head more than anything. I'll leave you to report to pretty much the most strategic mind you'll ever meet – worked his way up into the army much like you, except that he was destined to be near our lord since birth. Prince Vegeta will be waiting for you at the launching-deck; not treating him with respect will be your own risk. Go."

He ran. He hadn't expected to be actually **sent** to his father! His heart was racing and he was having trouble reminding himself that he'd be facing a Vegeta his own age. Sure – a Vegeta he could break apart with ease due to his super saiyan abilities – but still a more menacing man than he'd ever thought to know.

"Well, well… so you're the newbie," a gruff yet somehow still refined voice assessed him even as he'd hardly set foot on the deck.

He swallowed. That proud mane of black hair, those eyes, that voice… Even though both his slim physique as his somehow smaller face and even the more empty look in his eyes betrayed his younger age, it was still inexplicably his father; the man he'd been looking up to all his life.

"It's an honor to meet you, Prince Vegeta," he composed himself quietly.

The saiyan prince snorted.

"You don't look like much, but I can only assume Frieza intends to have you 'help' me in the planning of missions. I'm warning you now; get in my way and you might just meet a most unfortunate accident. But it's good to discover soldiers with brains are still hired; I was becoming concerned about the deteriorating quality of subordinates as of late. Name?"

"I'm called Quinten."

"Quinten, huh? So you're the fifth of what?" he asked mockingly; his universal knowledge of language kicking in like it was trained to.

"I'm not the fifth of anything… or maybe I am, but so are you. This is the fifth world I'm creating by existing."

Vegeta cocked an eyebrow; both bemused as entertained by the serious words of this youngster his own age he still considered his inferior. Yet he boarded one of the ball-like spaceships programmed to head to the spider-like spaceship he knew as home without questioning. His son from the future of another world followed his example.


	2. Conquest

**Author's Note: **Thanks for all the kind reviews I've received. Appreciate every single one! I'm so sorry that the update took long - and this goes for both my ongoing fics right now. I'm not forgetting about either one of them; real life is just demanding more of me than it used to and I find writing hard under the pressure. Even though I can't promise frequent updates, I'm not letting these projects lie around to gather dust either. Trying my hardest to keep at both of them. Please don't be impatient with me though, and I still hope you enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** Obviously, DBZ does not belong to me. This A/U is of my own making and what the characters do, think and say obviously is too in this story; but the characters themselves are not my property, nor is the brilliant story of DB(Z). I can only wish! ;-)

* * *

"Know their history. Know their culture. Know their shame. Sever the umbilical cord to their last remnants of hope. No resistance without hope. Plan each step. There's no room for failure; no place for doubt. Both will result in an untimely, deserved demise. If you want to survive, you stay ahead of the game. Conceal your thoughts and strive to be the strongest."

That single speech before they'd set out had spoken volumes. It kept replaying in the young warrior's mind. 'So you still hope, father? In spite of everything, you still hope. Mom was right… In this timeline, you laugh like that sadistic monster; you seem heartless and sometimes you even frighten me with your sickening behavior… Your silent resistance must be lonely, yet even in its grasp you stand proudly; refusing to show weakness or go down.'

His admiration grew as he planned the conquest and sale of a planet with his young father. Morally, he ought to be rejecting his course of action. But… He was starting to understand.

**Looking for Answers**

Chapter 2: Conquest

_You and I are no different. 'If only' ties us to life._

Once again he lowered his ki to ensure a low-level attack would graze him. The act had practically become an instinctual response; a necessity to prevent causing suspicion with his true potential. Even his young father, powerful and feared though he was, often returned from a war-site with cuts and bruises. Yet his old man was quite accustomed to keeping his scouter on at all times; allowing it to brief him on any fluctuation of ki around him. He'd been trying increasingly hard to keep his ki on a _constant_ low level; high enough to impress his dad and earn a spot that was practically beside him; but low enough to pose no threat to the prince's prowess or to that of the icy lizard who ruled him. Them. Keeping it at this level was just not something he was used to anymore.

Back in his world, he'd grown accustomed to keeping his ki up quite high. Having grown up in a world terrorized by the androids, it just gave him a sense of security to always be ready for threats of any league and any kind. Yet at home he'd taught himself to drop it to the way lower level of an average human man; the same level he'd forced himself to maintain when he'd first faced Frieza in his robotic form. There would be no way in hell he'd have been able to go about the daily, mundane chores his mom made him do if he kept his power up like that.

Making sure he didn't emanate more energy than this gray scale in between was straining him more than he'd ever imagined it would. He could at least explain his ki dropping with injury or exhaustion. What if it'd rise higher than his status report indicated it could one day?

"Be damned Quinten; quit daydreaming and **get to work**!" he heard a raspy voice bellow.

He smiled in spite of himself. His young dad at least didn't seem too worried. There was no opposition left in the bright green sky they were flying in.

"Time for the cities, 'ey?"

A nod.

"Go to your district."

Trunks obeyed. Saw them burn. Stared down at the craters; noticing he'd left the inhabitants no spare time to scream. It was best for them if it ended quickly. He was not allowed to change this history; it was not his reason for venturing to this time. He only did what other soldiers of Frieza's – or his dad, for that matter – would've ended up doing anyway.

Yet his blazing blue eyes kept looking down, and before he realized what he was doing; he slowly descended. Remains of skyscrapers, cottages and… what looked like it had been some kind of stuffed animal. An animal he had no way of placing; a species that had never evolved on earth… yet still a sign off innocence that hit an all too familiar string. His heart bled as he tried to shake of the memory; as his thoughts wandered to the androids… a game. Just a game. The same cruel game they had been playing. He was just as guilty. He'd willingly soaked his hands in innocent blood. Willingly. And for what reason?

"Done moping around? I'm only going to warn you one more time; after this, I couldn't care less. You have potential, but there's no place for **weaklings** in Frieza's army. You'll be dead before you know it if you don't put a stop to this pathetic whimpering of yours. Now come," he smirked haughtily. "We have a planet to sell."

The purple-haired man hadn't noticed he'd been shaking.

* * *

"Can you believe it? Vegeta just ditched us! **Ditched** us! For some stupid lavender-haired fagot boy that must've gotten a power-up from _modeling_ for the Intergalactic Gazette I'm telling you!" Nappa drunkenly complained to the younger Radditz.

Bardock's first son didn't respond as he laid eyes on an attractive, green-skinned female with extravagant feline features. The girl even had a tail. Distracted, he pushed her against a mossy wall in the crowded street.

"Want to lock tails with me?" he asked, half-leering as he released the saiyan tail he'd been trained to keep tightly wrapped around his armor.

The bald saiyan laughed; his thin mustache quivering. "Can't resist 'ey, buddy? Go right ahead then. I should be looking for some **fun** myself. Vegeta doesn't know what he's missing."

And he pushed through the mass of bodies as the younger saiyan focused on the catlike alien.

* * *

The time-misplaced demi-saiyan took on the role of the observer once again as he watched his father negotiate. Every single time he saw it, he couldn't help but feel as surprised as a young child who'd never taken a proper look at the world around him before. Having his father's small stature would have made _him_ insecure. When you considered the superior age and height and the bulkiness of the aliens he was facing; Trunks felt _he_'d be fighting an overwhelming urge to shrink.

Yet his young father stood not only proudly; but utterly relaxed and in control. He seemed to have a natural primacy. Whether it were his royal roots his time-traveling son could not say, but everyone would have agreed that he dominated the scene.

The aliens that tried to close a bargain to their advantage utterly failed. The prince left them baffled and confused; realizing they'd ended up signing something that would eventually mean their downfall and that, for now, would mean further enslavement to the Cold Empire.

Trunks did not know if he ought to feel proud of his dad; or now, technically, of his superior peer… but admire him? He felt it would've been impossible for anyone not to.

The guy played a perfect game of chess in every aspect of his life. He had every move he made covered twenty steps in advance. In an eerie sense, it was nothing less than brilliant.

"It never ceases to amaze me how these idiots concede to their pathetic fades. Simpletons," the black-haired prince spat, glee mingled with contempt emanating from his diplomatic voice; a feint sound of roughness present that didn't seem to fit him.

"But I suppose Lord Frieza will be pleased once he hears. We'll be selling this planet's technology separately, so for your sake, you'd best hope you didn't lose these plans."

Hearing his father use that mocking, threatening tone against him did no longer bother him as much as it used to. He could discern the subtleties now. He knew the man his own age didn't actually doubt him having the plans or not. In his own way, he'd uncovered his future son a reliable pawn, or even a knight. It was just a tone he needed to apply. Anyone would have to be aware of his position and remain aware, and he had reason to make sure of it.

Almost just as subtly, he affirmed what the other soldier was already expecting by touching his chest-armor shortly with his left hand. Prince Vegeta nodded.

Both entered the ball-like space-pods that had been awaiting them on the dry, magenta planes underneath the stars twinkling in the indigo sky that so resembled earth's. Trunks heard his father set the coordinates for both their vehicles; then they set off into the vast emptiness of space. The young man from a terrorized earth vaguely thought of the frightening lack of oxygen outside the vehicle he occupied when the hibernation-fume stopped everything.

* * *

Capsule Corp's famous aqua-haired CEO sighed. A month and a half. Her adult son had been gone a month and a half now.

She hadn't heard from him, but considering his superior strength when compared to the people he'd intended to surround himself with in the timeline he'd traveled too, she knew she didn't have much cause to fear for his life. Maybe only if her boy caught some strange, alien illness she didn't know about. Other than that…

No, he would just be busy.

"You'd better have a ton of photos for me by now, Trunks Briefs!" she ordered aloud as she looked upwards to the indigo, star-strewn sky.

But the intuition of a mother made her well-aware of how her son would be slacking off in that area… It didn't matter, though. If he didn't remember in due course, she'd just send him straight back whenever he returned to her. She smirked haughtily, resembling both her would-have-been saiyan husband as her full-grown son. She was just too good.

* * *

Radditz awoke with a headache in a smudgy alleyway; a furious Nappa glowering at him from above.

"Wha'z the matter?" he asked sleepily; squinting as he tried to get the other saiyan into focus.

The older saiyan gave him a savage kick that made the long-haired saiyan hurl, then forcefully put his two feet onto the gravel by lifting him into the air by the collar of his suit.

"Stop broadcasting how low-class you are. An elite warrior would never be found drunk and out-cold on the ground like that, no matter the circumstances. Just be grateful I didn't let these assassins just now have their way."

Kakarot's older brother mumbled something incoherently as he rubbed his eyes and moved to follow the bald man. He knew the matter wouldn't be pursued; the mustached bodyguard wasn't Vegeta, after all. And after some things he'd seen the guy get up too when drunk, he didn't really take the lecture that seriously, either.

Besides; he knew Nappa. He would boast to make sure he got his point across, but he wouldn't actually allow anyone to kill Radditz. They were comrades, after all; bound by their mutual fate as the last of a same race. Kin.

Nothing but the market's noise would've awoken the peasant saiyan from his stupor.

"Why the hell did you take us to the market? I thought we had a few days off asides from those ignorant fools we already disposed of on our first day here?"

"I got some hallucinogens to –"

But Nappa never did finish his sentence as his jaw dropped open and Radditz bumped into his burly form. Vegeta was watching as the purple-haired faggot the other two saiyans had only heard of seemed to be working on an attempt to bribe one of the market's most infamous leaders to part of a prize he treasured.

"Testing your replacement?" the tall saiyan roared, infuriated, all caution and usual reverence for the young prince forgotten after the last years of comradery. After the equality he'd felt as they'd purged and sold worlds like a small saiyan squadron; the last remaining.

Instigated by the lack of a response in its entirely, he launched himself at his past prodigy. He never reached him. Before he even realized what was happening, he was on his knees on the pebbled ground with his arm twisted cruelly behind his back.

"Know your place, Nappa."

Shocked by the bone-chilling silkiness he'd just heard in his father's voice – a silkiness that reminded him of no-one but Frieza – the one who called himself Quinten forgot about the bribery he'd been trying to orchestrate and looked around.

For the first time, he found himself eye to eye with pure-blood saiyans other than Goku and his father. He felt strangely comforted somehow; a sensation he couldn't comprehend.


End file.
